Gays tagged and sent out into the wild for tracking
…or at least, that was the first snarky thought to cross my mind as I read this article:
YOUR NEXT DATE COULD BE 10 METERS AWAY - OIA Newswire
WORLD’S FIRST BLUETOOTH BASED “GAY PERSONALS” FOR MOBILE PHONES ENABLES REAL-TIME AND IMMEDIATE CONNECTIVITY
AJ Entrepreneurs announced today the availability of its revolutionary mobile phone social networking software, emale mobile(TM), enabling immediate connectivity between today’s highly mobile individuals. This “personals” platform uses Bluetooth technology to instantly connect gays and lesbians within a 10-meter (33 feet) radius range, acting as a second sense of gaydar - the intuitive ability to ascertain whether another person is gay.
[...]emale mobile(TM) scans for others nearby while the user goes about his or her daily routine. When emale mobile(TM) detects another user, and if a match is found, both users’ profiles are exchanged automatically and saved to the mobile phone’s memory.
I admit, this seems like a pretty cool idea, at first. I love techno-widgets and I’m tempted to go download this to my little Bluetooth-enabled Motorola just to poke it and play with it. But I’ve seen services like this before, targeted to heterosexuals or to the dating pool in general, and every time I’m faced with a general sense of unease and the concept of feeling like an animal who’s been voluntarily tagged for tracking in the wild.
Maybe it’s just me. I’m not exactly paranoid, but I am rather protective of my privacy, and I don’t want every gay man within a 10-meter radius (or straight man or anything female masquerading as a gay man to play with the software) flagged with a “Homo on the port bow!” alert just because I happen to have my cellphone in my pocket when I head out to Wal-Mart to sate a craving for a bag of Dilettante chocolate-covered espresso beans.
There’s also the stalker factor, and how easy it would make it for some creep out there to use this service to hunt down people to assault, molest, or just be really, really weird around. Or the idea of some homophobic jackholes playing pretend and using it to hunt down someone to harass…how does emalemobile.com intend to make sure that only the target demographic uses the service?
The easy solution, of course, is to turn the software off and uninstall it, if those concerns bother you - or just don’t download it in the first place. But I suppose I do wonder about safety and privacy issues for those who intend to use the service in earnest, and how emalemobile.com intends to guarantee user security. It’s a little different from a personals site, where the decision to meet up with someone is your choice and even if you do end up with someone potentially dangerous, in the end you made a conscious decision to place yourself in the physical vicinity of a person who’s expressed interest with you in a digital format.
With emalemobile.com…some of that choice is removed by alerting others to your presence in their immediate vicinity, without giving you much of a chance to screen those people before they find out where you are on top of who you are. Supposedly the profile exchanges are automated, so if your profile contains a photo (not wise), you could be in the checkout line at Target only to suddenly find some big bruiser bearing down on you to ask you out for a date just because they recognized you from your profile photo and spotted you from two queues over.
Mm…maybe I’m just being an old fuddy and imagining worst-case scenarios, imagining Homeland Security officials using the service secretly to create databases of known homosexuals. (I don’t seriously think this would happen, I’m just being dramatic. Although HS has been known to classify gay advocate groups as possible terrorist threats who bear observation…)
What about you? Would you use the service, and feel comfortable with that kind of alerting and profile exchange system without established safeguards?
gay dating, gay personals, emale, emale mobile, emalemobile.com, cell phone, texting, sms, dating profiles, online dating services
May 29th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Do I think your fears are a bit overblown? Yes. Do I think they’re reasonable anyway? ..Aside from the one about homeland security, yes. Would I use this? Not hardly.
But then, I don’t use, and doubt I ever would use, a singles service. It just doesn’t fit into how I go about or think about finding a boyfriend. I think about it as having a friend first, and then possibly taking things further; meaning that we’d better have enough things in common outside of homosexuality.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:49 am
~laughs~ Reynai, I said I was being dramatic, not that I actually think these things will happen on a widespread basis. The point here is that I want people to consider these possibilities before they consider using the service blindly, and then if they choose to use the service, at least they know these things could happen. They probably won’t, but they could. It’s more about looking at all possible angles of a situation than doomsaying.
I’m kind of the same way about dating, though. I do haunt a few personals services, but more to meet idle friends for conversation (and the occasional blog topic). I can’t really see myself seriously dating anyone that I met on a personals site.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
“…I don’t want every gay man within a 10-meter radius (or straight man or anything female masquerading as a gay man to play with the software) flagged with a ‘Homo on the port bow!’ alert just because I happen to have my cellphone in my pocket…”
I just spat Vitamin Water ALL DOWN MY SCHOOL T-SHIRT. Happy now?
May 30th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Happy? Maybe. Smug?
Definitely.
May 30th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Jerk. I had to wash it again last night.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I’d use it.. in fact just downloaded and gave it a try. If you don’t want people to find you at certain times or places, just close the application - if it’s not running, then you’re not detectable. When you feel like cruising (for whatever you’re in the mood for), just run it.
I guess it’d be great for those time you’re playing eye-tag with someone, but you’re both with own group of friends and not able to approach eachother. You both just turn it on and bingo, you’ve done your introduction without anyone knowing and can contact the other discretely.
I suppose there is a dangerous side to it though, if used by a homophobe with cruel intentions. But then again doesn’t every kind of “dating” service have these kind of threats? Like other dating services, it just needs to be used responsibly.